Moving from analogue to digital systems allows facial recognition to be used.

Edinburgh Council has announced a £1 million plan to upgrade the city's CCTV surveillance network of 214 cameras. As part of the upgrade, the city's analogue cameras will be replaced by "HD" digital cameras that are "as clear as watching television in your own home."

According to a story in the Edinburgh Evening News: "The seven-figure investment is the first step in a long-term plan to integrate equipment belonging to the council and CCTV operators including Lothian Buses, Edinburgh Trams and traffic management organisations." The aim is to have "one hub for Edinburgh that would take in everybody’s CCTV cameras."

The upgrade from analogue cameras to digital systems brings powerful new tracking features, such as facial recognition software that allows faces to be scanned in real time and matched against database entries, and the capture of vehicle registration numbers.

The new system will be designed to fight offences such as "allowing dogs to foul public places and fly-tipping." But the network would also "allow individuals to be tracked while using public transport, spending time in shopping centres and participating in demonstrations." In fact, monitoring protesters seems to be one of the main reasons for upgrading, judging by another comment reported by the Edinburgh Evening News. A member of the Edinburgh Council, Cammy Day, said: "The main goal here is to have an integrated CCTV system for the capital city. We have the parliament, where people come to protest."

Day also provided this wonderful soundbite: "Our analogue cameras are a bit slow and do not offer the best images. The new cameras should be able to produce images that are as clear as watching television in your own home."

Further Reading

In response to worries about surveillance becoming more intrusive, another councillor is quoted as follows: "I know there are concerns about civil liberties but I wonder if these are coming from people who are not aware of the amount of CCTV we have now. My understanding is that this technology will provide clearer images, particularly at lower-light levels. This is about increasing the quality rather than the extent of coverage."

But the big change in the move to upgrade Edinburgh's CCTV cameras is not quality, but the shift to digital output. Whereas analogue images are hard to combine with other data, digital ones are already in a form that lends itself to rapid analysis and re-use, just like communications metadata. For example, facial recognition will allow people to be tracked by successive CCTV cameras as they move around the city, providing a complete record of where they went, and who they met.

If Edinburgh Council discussions with government come to fruition, the CCTV network could be extended to the whole of south-east Scotland, and with it the same level of near-continuous surveillance.